Monday, September 27, 2010

Exxon (NYSE:XOM), Shell (NYSE:RDS-A) Increasing Drilling at Qurna

ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) and Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS-A), partners in the West Qurna Phase One field in Iraq, said they're going to increase the amount of drilling in the project by over twice as much as they are now in order to attain the production goals of the venture, according to ExxonMobil Iraq Vice President James Adams..

The goal is to produce 2.325 million barrels of oil daily. That could even result in close to three times the existing 370 wells in the Qurna field.

For the rest of 2010, Adams said only a handful of wells will be able to be drilled, as they are still investigating and evaluating Qurna.

Daily production at the field at this time is 200,000 to 250,000 barrels a day. Earlier in the year Adams said the goal of the venture in the short term is to increase production by 10 percent at the end of the first quarter of next year.

The West Qurna Phase One project has an estimated 8.7 billion barrels in it.